Sprint PCS Stores Diversifying, Expanding

Overland, Kansas - Sprint PCS is diversifying the wireless-service offerings in its company-owned stores and adding new stores at a quick pace.

This week, the stores began selling Virgin Mobile-branded prepaid service as their first non-Sprint-branded wireless service. They also began offering Sprint-branded local landline service for the first time as part of the new Sprint Complete Sense package, which bundles Sprint-brand local and long-distance landline services with Sprint wireless service in one monthly bill. Previously, the stores sold only Sprint long distance.

All of the services will be available in more Sprint-owned stores in the coming months and years, promised Ali Zanjani, president of retail for Sprint's PCS division. The carrier's 550 stores will multiply to at least 660 stores by the end of this year and to 800 stores by the end of 2004, the company said. 'On average, we've been opening 100 stores per year since 1997 [when Sprint PCS launched service],' Zanjani noted.

Those numbers exclude Sprint-branded stores owned by Sprint's affiliate carriers, which operate their own networks but brand them with the Sprint name. Their stores number roughly 200, the company said.